Most Recent Trips

Inspirational Quote

Second Flatiron - Free For AllNovember 11, 2005

With Veterans Day off from work I was jonesing to get back down to the Flatirons for another climb. After considering several routes my wife Julie and I settled on "Free For All" - a 5.6 route on the Second Flatiron.

The first three pitches were super easy and we made short work of them. Pitch four got a little more interesting as we climbed up below the Pullman Car. We set up a belay below a chimney-like crack and the fifth pitch turned out to be pretty challenging face climbing right up to the bottom of the Pullman Car. From there you could climb the overhanging 5.10d crack up onto the face of the Pullman Car, or traverse left around to the south side of the car. We opted for the latter and traversed into the gully between the Pullman Car and the South Face. I made the mistake of not dropping down directly into the gully and got into a little trouble when I ran out of rope before making it to a reasonable belay stance. A very unstylish downclimb got me down into the gully where I brought Julie up.

The sixth pitch was some more interesting climbing up along the south side of the Pullman Car until I found a weakness which I was able to climb up and onto the face of the Pullman Car. The final short pitch was 5.easy along the south edge of the face of the Pullman Car to the summit. A short rap and a class-4 downclimb got us down to the west side of the Second Flatiron. The sun set on us during the walk back down to the car.